Verizon lights one candle for LTE, confirms Xyboard Droid tablet name, December launch
Today marks one full year after Verizon first flipped the switch on LTE, with 365 days of 4G speeds for customers in 39 markets. By the end of next week, Big Red will light up a few more cities, bringing the total number to 190, with access available to more than 200 million Americans. Buried below the PR cake, however, is an even juicer tidbit -- two "hot new Xyboard Droid tablets from Motorola coming out this month." And what might those be? Well, if this weekend's accessory leak is any indication, the Xoom 2 is headed to VZW -- before the year is out. And we're not surprised to see the Galaxy Nexus getting some love as well, though you'll have to make due with a "coming soon" release commitment for at least a short while longer. Jump past the break for the PR.
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Happy 1st Anniversary, Verizon Wireless 4G LTE!
Alabama, Arkansas, California . . . West Virginia, Wisconsin . . . and all over. On Dec. 15, more than 200 million Americans will be able to experience the blazingly fast speed and reliability of our 4G LTE network.
And today, on Dec. 5, we're celebrating big time because it's the one-year anniversary of our initial deployment of 4G LTE. We started in 38 major markets, plus a 39th – West Lafayette, Indiana – the home of Purdue University. Our friends at Purdue were incredibly anxious to begin developing uses for 4G LTE on campus and we made sure they had the resources to keep their technology mojo humming.
Network Reach
Those initial 39 markets weren't all small, of course. They were places like metro New York City, San Francisco, Chicagoland and Atlanta. And on that first day, we covered more than 110 million people with 4G LTE: a very strong showing.
This is what leadership is about. Some of our competitors in the marketplace talk about 4G LTE a lot. What they're planning, when they might have services in lots of cities, when they might get an abundance of 4G LTE smartphones and other devices so users can actually, well, use the network.
On Dec. 15, Verizon Wireless will be in 190 markets, covering more than 200 million people, with numerous different devices. Which means you have a great selection of smartphones, tablets, mobile hotspots and USB modems to access the network.
We build and maintain the best wireless networks in the world. That's why Popular Science and PCWorld have both recently acknowledged our 4G LTE network as one of the great technological developments of 2011.
Hats off to the Verizon Wireless network engineers who are building 4G LTE from the ground up. Cheers to our major network infrastructure partners at Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Cisco.
It's time to blow out the candle and know that "Year 2" will be twice as bright.
Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Facts
200 million Americans covered with 4G LTE (as of Dec. 15)
190 Markets covered (as of Dec. 15)
16 Devices currently available, including eight smartphones
Two hot new Xyboard DROID tablets from Motorola coming out this month
One anxiously awaited GALAXY Nexus smartphone running Android™ 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, from Samsung, coming soon
4G LTE Devices
Smartphones: HTC Rezound™, DROID RAZR™ by Motorola, Samsung Stratosphere™, Pantech Breakout™, DROID BIONIC™ by Motorola, Revolution™ by LG, DROID Charge by Samsung and ThunderBolt™ by HTC
Tablets: Samsung Galaxy Tab™ 10.1 with 4G LTE and Motorola XOOM™
Notebooks and Netbooks: HP® Pavilion dm1-3010nr Entertainment PC and Compaq™ Mini CQ10-688nr with built-in 4G LTE
Hotspots: Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi™ 4510L and Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot SCH-LC11
Modems: Verizon Wireless 4G LTE USB Modem 551L and Pantech UML290 USB modem
